Look, if a backwards society wants to allow a ten-year-old girl to marry a 10-year-old boy, I’ve got no problem with that. But, when a backwards religion says it is okay for a 50-plus-year-old to marry a prepubescent little girl, I’ve got a BIG problem with that one!
It’s an injustice to NOT marry girls aged 10, says Saudi cleric
By Daily Mail Reporter
Ten-year-old girls are ready for marriage, according to Saudi Arabia’s most senior cleric.
Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al Sheikh, the country’s grand mufti, told Al Hayat newspaper that those saying ten or 12-year-old girls are too young to marry are being ‘unfair’ to them.
Al Sheikh’s comments come at a time when Saudi human rights groups have been pushing the government to put an end to marriages involving the very young and to define a minimum age for marriage.
In the past few months, Saudi newspapers have highlighted several cases in which young girls were married off to much older men or very young boys.
Though the mufti’s pronouncements are respected and provide guidance, the government is not legally bound by them.
On Sunday, the government-run Human Rights Commission condemned marriages of minor girls, saying such marriages are an ‘inhumane violation’ and rob children of their rights.
The commission’s statement followed a ruling by a court in Oneiza in central Saudi Arabia last month that dismissed a divorce petition by the mother of an eight-year-old girl whose father married her off to a man in his 50s.
Newspaper reports said the court argued that the mother did not have the right to file such a case on behalf of her daughter and said that the petition should be filed by the girl when she reaches puberty.
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